April 2012 Summaries

CakePHP and Twilio are used together to receive and reply to SMS messages. The process involves setting up a Twilio number, creating a TwiML application, and configuring CakePHP to handle the requests. This includes adding a line to the `app/Config/core.php` file to set the 'twilio' prefix, another line to the `app/Config/routes.php` file to parse the '.xml' extension, and creating an action in the `InstallationsController.php` file to receive and process the SMS messages. The action checks for a POST request, finds the correct installation using the Twilio phone number, creates a message array, saves it to the database, and sends a response with a 'Thank you!' message.

Kunal Batra, a co-founder of General Machines, has been working on various projects since the last time he was featured in a developer contest. He recently hired a college friend as a co-founder and is currently focusing on features for Deaftel and training a neural network to identify gender in phone calls. Kunal's inspiration comes from sci-fi shows like Star Trek, which motivates him to bring fictional technologies into reality. With unlimited time and money, he would continue working on projects related to Deaftel. As a programmer, Kunal emphasizes the importance of starting with tutorials and gaining diverse skills as a hobby. He faces challenges balancing full-time work and startup responsibilities but finds motivation in building something that makes an impact and earning recognition. General Machines is currently looking to join an incubator and showcase their products, including Deaftel and the Universal Translator, through Twilio's platforms.

The winner of the Salesforce developer contest was Michael Norton's Twilio Messaging for Salesforce app, which enables users to send voice or SMS messages to Leads and Contacts and track them as Activity records in Salesforce. The app allows users to type in phone numbers and messages on a custom Visualforce page, which then sends the message via SMS or voice depending on user selection. The developer, Mike Norton, is a Salesforce Certified Advanced Developer and Twilio Advocate at AAA of Northern California, with his blog featuring information on developing with the Salesforce API. The company encourages developers to participate in its monthly Twilio-powered contests, providing resources and support for building innovative solutions using Twilio's cloud communication platform.

Instant Mode allows users to provision Box storage without authentication by passing an email address, creating a folder accessible only to the app and user, with no need for a Box account. The Box Innovation Network and Twilio are hosting a developer contest featuring this new feature, offering prizes such as tickets to the 2012 Twilio Conference, free Box accounts, Kindle Fires, and other rewards. Developers can build custom apps using Twilio and Box APIs, access event stream data, and deploy as content services or mobile apps with native iOS SDKs. The contest encourages developers to submit their apps by May 6th, with bonus points for submissions to the Twilio App Gallery and Programmable Web, and a special profile on the Twilio and Box developer blog.

The Box Innovation Network and Twilio have announced a developer contest that allows developers to create apps using Twilio and Box APIs without authentication, providing instant satisfaction with the new Instant Mode feature. The contest is open to the Twilio developer community and offers prizes such as a ticket to the 2012 Twilio Conference, free Box storage, and other rewards. To participate, developers need to sign up for both a Box and Twilio account, build an app using the APIs, and submit it by May 6th with a video or screencast showcasing their creation. The contest aims to encourage developers to create something awesome using Twilio-powered solutions and provides resources such as documentation, SDKs, and sample apps to help them get started.

Richard Keith Latman, a serial entrepreneur, was nearly crushed by orders for his low-priced PCs and free Internet service when his startup Microworkz faced mounting lawsuits and complaints. To support his family, he sold cars, which led to the idea that formed the basis of his next company, iCarmagic, later renamed iMagicLab, a cloud-based CRM software provider to car dealers. Initially, the telephony features in iMagicLab had reliability issues with various providers, but after signing up for Twilio API, the number of lost calls dropped to zero, and the service improved significantly. Latman plans to expand iMagicLab into other verticals and has released a book, "The Good Fail," which is part life story and part entrepreneur's reference guide, marking the end of the Microworkz story for him and the start of a new chapter.

Eric Rockenbach, the founder of logixTrade, aimed to add an interactive voice response system to his automated trading platform using Twilio API in a short amount of time. He was pleasantly surprised that it took him only two days instead of the estimated two weeks to achieve this goal. The new IVR allows users to respond to alerts, such as suspending them for a specific interval, providing carrier-grade reliability and peace of mind for Rockenbach. This system enables him to leave his trading platform alone while still being instantly notified of any important changes, aligning with the idea of automated systems that require prompt attention when something happens.

The first NY Tech Day event was held at the historic Lexington Armory in New York City, attracting over 200 startups from across the city. Twilio-powered startups Amicus and FoundIt! were among those exhibiting, showcasing their innovative solutions for social fundraising and lost item tracking. The event featured keynote talks from industry giants David Tisch and Charlie O'Donnell, as well as a startup judging competition that awarded prizes in various categories, including Best Use of Location, Best Mobile App, and Best Business Model. The event was a huge success, with attendees enjoying swag, networking opportunities, and inspiring talks.

VoIP Drupal is an open source communications toolkit that combines the power of Twilio with Drupal web sites, allowing users to create hybrid applications that connect regular touch tone phones, the Web, SMS, and other channels in various ways. It provides a versatile platform for community outreach and online presence, even for those with limited technical expertise or internet access. The tool enables features such as phone extensions, click-to-call, voicemail, audio blogging, and powerful dialplan scripts for inbound calls, facilitating interactive phone conversations and SMS surveys. VoIP Drupal has been used to develop various applications, including My Dot Tour, a participatory neighborhood tour system, and What's Up, a local information system in Wisconsin. The platform is flexible and suitable for creating "voice and sms apps" across different domains, such as electoral campaigns, community alert systems, and e-commerce sites.

The Twilio Quickstart Screencast series provides an interactive way for developers to learn the basics of Twilio's cloud communication platform by following along with screencasts that demonstrate each tutorial in action, starting with the PHP version and expanding to other languages in the future. The series is designed to help users build their own awesome Twilio apps, including receiving incoming text messages, and can be accessed through various resources including related posts, resource center, ahoy (Twilio's developer community hub), and more.

The post-PC world is a radically different reality from the desktop web, where marketers honed their skills, with horizontal keyword search giving way to vertical-specific apps and touch- and voice-driven interfaces writing most of the laws. Marketers must adapt to an era that values reputation and spontaneous discovery over traditional tactics like SEM and SEO. The future of marketing involves creating awesome content that makes you relevant, leveraging your awesomeness to establish a relationship with customers, and responding instantly to their communications channels. Cloud communications democratizes telecom, making it easy for anyone to create applications that historically required expensive hardware and skills, abstracting away challenges like interactive voice response and automated outbound dialing. By producing products that incite passions and generating content that resonates through noise, marketers can become part of customers' feeds and engage them when and where they want to be engaged.

The author of the text is Alex Swan, a developer who built a picture caption game using Twilio SMS and PubNub, showcasing the game's functionality through a screencast and then diving into its code in a Github Repo. The game allows users to view an image, input a picture caption, vote on favorite captions via SMS, and interact with the web app. Alex is a long-time Twilio developer with experience in multiple programming languages, and his project can be found online as well as being part of Twilio's resources for developers.

Partyline is an experiment that transforms phone calls into sound collages for art, combining ambient noises with involuntary participation. It consists of two parts: Voyeur, which dials participants and records their inputs, and Sequencer, a responsive view into the voices going on at the time. The project was created by Casey Rodarmor and his team as part of Art Hack Weekend SF, an event that combines art, technology, and collaboration. Partyline uses various technologies such as three.js, webgl, javascript, websockets, apache, python, and twilio to create its interactive sound collage experience. Although the project is no longer active, it explores the potential for telephone calls to generate meaning and can be seen as a pioneering work in this field, with the team planning to explore this concept further in the future.

This system allows users to verify their phone numbers using Twilio Voice, PHP 7, MySQL 5.x, and jQuery. The process involves the user entering their phone number on a web page, generating a random verification code, and receiving a call with instructions to enter the code. If the entered code is incorrect, the user is prompted again until they enter the correct code. Once the code is verified, the system updates the database and displays a success message to the user. The entire process is handled through AJAX requests to Twilio's REST API, which initiates phone calls and gathers the user's input using TwiML.

The Cost of Freedom Project is a citizen-led initiative developing location-based apps to provide voters with information on how to obtain suitable voter IDs. The project aims to address the confusion among voters about voting requirements, particularly in states that do not require photo identification at the polls. A unique aspect of this app is its use of Google Docs as a live, online data store, allowing anyone with write access to update the information sent in response to user queries. This enables Faye Anderson, Chief Evangelist for the project, to work on updating the spreadsheet without needing programming expertise. The app was developed using PHP and retrieves data from a publicly published Google Spreadsheet using the Google Spreadsheets API. The Cost of Freedom Project aims to deliver quality information to those looking for it, with the ultimate goal of helping democracy by providing voters with accurate and accessible information about voting requirements.

Rotobooth is a photobooth powered by an Arduino and connected to a rotary phone, allowing users to take four photos that are then sent via SMS with links to their images on Flickr. The project was inspired by the team's desire to create a fun and interactive experience, with the first prize being a weekend of hard work and play. The Rotobooth uses Twilio for sending photo links via text message, leveraging the team's prior experience with phone hacking and Asterisk. With plans to expand the product to include remote locations and new features, Rotobooth aims to bring people together through photography.

The second annual TwilioCon 2012 conference will take place this October, bringing together over 1,000 members of the Twilio community to discuss next-generation communication solutions. The event features a call for speakers, with opportunities for technologists, industry leaders, and passionate individuals to share their expertise. Attendees can expect three days of non-stop Twilio content, including technical training sessions, hackathons, and keynote talks from prominent figures such as Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke, Ben Milne, and Albert Wenger. The conference also showcases the latest products and innovations in the Twilio ecosystem, with opportunities to network with companies like Ebay, LinkedIn, and Salesforce that use Twilio to power their customer interactions and communications features.

Building a mobile app in the cloud using HTML5 and Ruby on Rails is a topic of discussion that will be covered at an event led by Carter Rabasa of Twilio and Chris Tosswell of Engine Yard, with technical demos to follow. The presentation will cover best practices for deployment, differences between smartphones and feature phones, key services and technologies, and how to scale faster with the cloud. For those interested in learning more about Ruby on Rails app development, Engine Yard provides a cloud platform that supports both small and large apps, while also offering related resources such as blog posts, videos, and documentation.

The Powered by MongoDB hackathon is a free event where developers can join Twilio and MongoDB to solve complex problems and have a chance to win prizes, including a year subscription to a Github Org Account and free tickets to MongoNYC. The event aims to educate young developers and support the New York startup community while raising funds for HackNY.

The JavaScript Conference (JSConf) is an annual event that brings together developers to share knowledge and build connections in a small and intimate environment. The conference has gained popularity, with browser makers improving the web platform, OS vendors embracing Javascript and HTML5, Node.js becoming increasingly popular, and mobile toolkits empowering millions of web developers to build mobile applications. This year's JSConf showcased two technologies that Javascript developers can use to integrate with REST services like Twilio: Node.js and Windows 8. The conference also highlighted the growth of Javascript in various industries, including gaming and communication. With the conference ending, attendees are already looking forward to next year's event.

The Summer Jobs+ program aims to promote youth in tech by hosting a coding contest where top apps will be highlighted on the White House website. The initiative was announced by Aneesh Chopra, previous CTO of the United States, and is being supported by Twilio, which launched a lightning round developer contest. The contest's winners will have their apps showcased on WhiteHouse.gov, highlighting innovative solutions for youth in tech.

Michael Newman, VP of Technology at Pomp Productions, was invited to speak at the TEDxUCLA 2011 event about his project "Making things" which was inspired by a trip to Maker Faire and mind controlled Nerf guns. He built a special project using Arduino, a Nerf Gun and Twilio that resulted in an extraordinary display titled "Sketches of a Tangent Gone Awry". The project involved balloons, audience location mapping, and a fully automatic computer Nerf Machine Gun built on several programming languages including C, PHP, MySQL, Javascript/jQuery, and a custom circuit board. This project showcased Newman's creativity and technical skills in combining different technologies to create an innovative display.

DrupalCon Hits Denver for a Module-Fueled Good Time` The 2019 DrupalCon event in Denver saw an impressive showing of submissions from developers who integrated Twilio with Drupal, resulting in three finalists and two prizes. The contest theme encouraged creativity beyond just pixel-level design, and the winning projects showcased innovative uses of Twilio's services such as SMS interfaces, conference calling, and customer service integrations. The judges praised the winners for their technical expertise and community spirit, with one developer even releasing his modules on Drupal.org before they were officially approved. The event also highlighted the importance of collaboration and feedback, with a panel of expert judges providing valuable insights to the contestants.

The April Showers Bring May Hacks with Wunderground and Twilio developer contest is a month-long challenge for developers to build weather-inspired apps that utilize both the Weather Underground and Twilio APIs. The contest aims to encourage innovation and creativity in solving problems related to severe weather warnings, travel, and random number generation. Developers will have two weeks to complete the task, with submissions accepted via a provided form. The winner receives the title of "weather-master" along with a Vantage Vue Wireless Weather Station Underground Package, while second-place prizes include a Kindle stocked with books on programming, weather hacking, and technology. The contest is part of Twilio's monthly developer contests, which encourage developers to build something awesome using Twilio-powered solutions.

Top Hat Monocle is a web-based tool that teachers can use in the classroom to engage students using polls, interactive demos, and discussion tools, allowing students to participate with any device they have. It was started in 2009 by engineering grads from the University of Waterloo, aiming to transform the passive classroom environment into an active one without imposing huge costs on schools. Top Hat Monocle is currently used by tens of thousands of students at over 70 universities worldwide and plans to expand its services with tools like note taking, online homework, and tutoring. The platform is built primarily in Python on Django, hosted on EC2, and uses Twilio SMS for its functionality, which has proven to be user-friendly, reliable, and well-documented.

The contest is a call for developers to build weather-inspired apps that utilize the Weather Underground API and Twilio APIs, with the goal of predicting severe weather warnings through voice and SMS integration, among other possibilities. The grand prize winner will receive a Vantage Vue Wireless Weather Station package, while second-place winners will get a Kindle filled with programming and technology books. Developers have two weeks to submit their apps, which must include video or screencast submissions, and meet specific contest rules. This is one of Twilio's monthly developer contests aimed at encouraging developers to solve problems and showcase their skills using the Twilio platform.